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I stopped caring about the Grammy Awards about 40+ years ago, back when Stevie Wonder would always win. Obviously, they don’t let you vote for the Grammys until you are too old to really care about pop music. So they usually give Grammys to classy acts who appeal to grown-ups, like Stevie Wonder in the early to mid-70s. By now, Stevie has won 25 Grammys.

Back in the late 1970s, us bright white guys who wrote about music felt, deep down, that more Grammys should go to bright white guys who looked like us, like Elvis Costello. But mostly we understood how the Grammies had to work and didn’t pay much attention to them.

But lately, the bright white guys who write about music have decided that it’s racist and sexist for anybody other than old-time trouper Beyonce, who has been a star since the 1990s, to win any Grammys.

… Simply put, the Grammys, like America, have an inclusion problem — or more to the point, an exclusion problem. The 59th annual installment of the ceremony, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday night, was as noteworthy for who won as who didn’t, for who attended as for who opted to sit out. It was a show about borders — who is allowed to cross, who isn’t and who doesn’t even bother trying.

Adele won all five Grammys she was nominated for, including album of the year (for “25”), record of the year and song of the year (for “Hello”), besting Beyoncé in all three categories. …

At the end of the night, when Adele won album of the year, she deferred to Beyoncé: “The way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel, is empowering,” Adele told her from the stage, while behind her, a huge gaggle of predominantly white male songwriters and producers clapped enthusiastically.

These days, pop divas almost all have huge numbers of predominantly white (often Swedish) male songwriters and producers. I looked up the top pop songwriters in 2012, and they had names like Baroque composers: Johan Karl Schuster, Łukasz Gottwald, Wouter de Backer, etc.

Talented white males … they must be dealt with.

In that moment, just a few feet separated Adele and Beyoncé, but the chasm between their treatment by the Grammys was huge, and potentially unbridgeable. It was #GrammysSoWhite come to life. For years, Kanye West has complained about how black artists — himself, but also others — are mistreated in the main Grammy categories. …

The Grammys’ race problem is so pernicious that some white winners have chosen contrition over exuberance — Adele’s embrace of Beyoncé, Macklemore’s apology to Kendrick Lamar in 2014 (Macklemore reportedly did not submit his most recent album for consideration this year) — demonstrating a greater understanding of the fundamental imbalance of the Grammys system than the Grammys themselves. …

The Grammys’ consistent celebration of tradition-minded white acts feels like single-party rule in an evenly divided nation, while the royalty from the other side — Beyoncé and Jay Z, Jennifer Lopez,

Jennifer Lopez is 47 years old. Presumably, Mr. Caramanica was on deadline and couldn’t think of any hipper Hispanics. Or maybe there aren’t any?

Rihanna — looks on politely from the front rows. (Or, in the case of Mr. West and Mr. Ocean, who did not attend the Grammys, not even looking on.) There was also frisson in the ceremony’s lumpy attempts to bridge the age gap: When the show tried to highlight the work of Neil Diamond, via a clumsily executed version of James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” routine, it was clear that most of the assembled stars didn’t know the words to “Sweet Caroline.” …

Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” is now associated with Bostonians resisting the depredations of the Tsarnaev Brothers, so that makes “Sweet Caroline” an Islamophobic anti-refugee hatesong.

Note that in this context, the pejorative “white” basically means “Jewish.” In other words, the NYT is saying: All you old Jews in the music industry who like Neil Diamond songs had better hurry up and die … to make way for middle-aged People of Color like Jay-Z and Jennifer Lopez.

Again, strictly controlled borders. …

Have I ever mentioned how insanely extremist the Conventional Wisdom has become about borders?

Beyoncé performed in a gold crown that suggested a futuristic Lady Liberty

What a hip, happening concept: the Statue of Liberty!

, and during her acceptance speech for best urban contemporary album, preached about the power of inclusion: “It’s important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror, first through their own families — as well as the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys — and see themselves, and have no doubt that they’re beautiful, intelligent and capable.”

Honoring Beyoncé in categories devoted to black music goes part of the way to fulfilling that vision, but it’s where she’s not honored that feels more pointed: She has won 22 times, but only four of those awards have been in all-genre categories. (She has lost album of the year three times, to Beck, Taylor Swift and Adele.)

White people, why can’t you understand that Diversity means Black Supremacy? The Grammys won’t be Diverse until they are 100% black. That’s what Diversity means.

So long as the Grammys continue to strike a blow for the values of yesteryear over the energy of today, they will remain an agent of the status quo, not resistance or evolution. But when an institution stands still while its citizens are pressing for change, how long can the borders hold before everyone outside is let in, or everyone inside decides it’s not worth staying, and leaves?

We must tear down all borders so that Beyonce can win not 22 but 222 Grammys!

Have you ever noticed that basically everything you are supposed to believe in these days — feminism, diversity, etc. — turns out in practice to just be another way for hot babes, rich guys, super salesmen, cunning financiers, telegenic self-promoters, and charismatic politicians to get even more money and power?

This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They’re ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum.

"This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They’re ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum."

Indeed. Stevie Wonder is a musician. Kanye West is a post-modern minstrel-show performer.

Any analogue of IQ would be a poor measure of musical talent. It's like saying Floyd Mayweather can squat 150 pounds more than some high school lacrosse player. Sure, he's quite a bit stronger, but when you put the two of them in the ring, it doesn't quite capture the extent of the difference.

Musical talent is made up of a lot more than IQ or anything that looks like IQ, just like baseball talent is made up of a lot more than 40 meter time. I agree that Stevie Wonder is talented, although I'll take Rachmaninoff or Scriabin over him any day.

However, if Stevie Wonder is the musical equivalent of a respectably good NFL quarterback, most going pop stars are getting cut from JV tryouts.

It's a staple for Boston Red Sox games, which also explains why the New York Times would hate it. Apparently it's been a Fenway tradition for 20 years now, and, since the Marathon bombing it's like "Gold Bless America."

In re: the article,

But when an institution stands still while its citizens are pressing for change, how long can the borders hold before everyone outside is let in, or everyone inside decides it’s not worth staying, and leaves?

Does this mean that if America doesn't open its golden door to the wretched refuse of the world, then everyone who is here will leave? Maybe just the author of the article will leave. That's an idea.

I also note that the author seems to think that a freaking awards show for popular music involves concepts like "pressing for change" and "resistance and evolution." I can't think of pop music critics taking themselves this seriously since the mid-70's.

We are almost forty frigging years since rap was the hot new thing and these Hollywood morons still keep hyping the next fresh prince —- last night they gave best new artist to a rapper and the world could care less. Ratings are down again for this show/creepfest.

Anyone else noticing much less rap these days booming from random motor vehicles in your town?

Whites are slowly regaining civilizational confidence but still not enough people are calling bs on the rappers.

On the one hand, we have this celebration of black degeneracy in pop music.

But then, in movies like HIDDEN FIGURES, we get something like hidden-quasi-conservative fantasy of black women being classy, dignified, and bourgeois.

One part of White America cheers on the Negroes for their excesses and jungle jive.
Another part of White America harks back to a time when Negroes had more class than ‘twerking’ ass. Obama is a throwback to the 60s Sidney Poitier kind of negro who is well-spoken. His appeal was big at a time when whites are dancing to rap where blacks talk like morons. So, schizo. A need for both jungle negro and classy negro.

Whites are addicted to Negro lunacy, but because of MLK-myth, whites also look to Noble Negro for moral rectitude. But how can the Negro be noble when they be acting like rapping loons? So, Hollywood balances the Negro Loon image with Negro Nostalgia or Negrostalgia… of a time when blacks were eager to prove that they can be respectable and ‘middle class’ too. They didn’t have long colored nails, dumb hair weaves, tight pants over fat booties, etc.

The media seem to be saying with celebration of rap culture, “Aint Negroes so wonderful cuz they is so wild and crazy and natural and animal-like?” … but then with stuff like HIDDEN FIGURES, the media seem to saying, “What are you, ‘racist’ or something in thinking that blacks are a bunch of jungle-wild punkass jivers? Don’t you know blacks are smart, well-mannered, poised, and sober about science and stuff?”

I haven’t paid attention to the Grammys since grade school. I too figured out they were never going to award them to any songs I liked. However, I loathe the current generation of tuneless top 40 pop chanteuses with the fire of a thousands suns. They used to give Grammys to artists who honestly did something to deserve them. This is pretty good example of the sort of artist and song who used to win Grammys, which wasn’t bad at all:

However, the sort of female singing I prefer these days is more like this, and it’s certainly never going to win a Grammy from the current crowd of bores:

As for Taylor Swift, the best thing that ever happened to one of her songs was this:

Anybody of a certain age in the Greater Boston area grew up listening to the local college bar troubadours like Jim Plunkett and DJ Sullivan playing Sweet Caroline, an upbeat singalong kind of song, every night around town and down on the Cape at the old Mill Hill Club and The Improper Bostonian during the summer.

Sweet Caroline doesn't remind me of the Red $ox; it reminds me of the summers I spent chasing tail at the Improper!

"Sweet Caroline" is actually popular with young white males. They play it a lot at baseball games and fraternity events, which is probably why the NYT hates it.

It’s a staple for Boston Red Sox games, which also explains why the New York Times would hate it. Apparently it’s been a Fenway tradition for 20 years now, and, since the Marathon bombing it’s like “Gold Bless America.”

In re: the article,

But when an institution stands still while its citizens are pressing for change, how long can the borders hold before everyone outside is let in, or everyone inside decides it’s not worth staying, and leaves?

Does this mean that if America doesn’t open its golden door to the wretched refuse of the world, then everyone who is here will leave? Maybe just the author of the article will leave. That’s an idea.

I also note that the author seems to think that a freaking awards show for popular music involves concepts like “pressing for change” and “resistance and evolution.” I can’t think of pop music critics taking themselves this seriously since the mid-70′s.

It’s interesting how race ends up being the Diversity Category that matters at the end of the day. One day, all women are marching together as one, but the next a white woman wins an award and all of a sudden white women are almost as bad as white males. I’m reminded of the recent Hayek-Williams drama.

I’m not sure if this is more revealing of human nature or the obsessions of journalists.

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they'll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it'll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don't want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

“But when an institution stands still while its citizens are pressing for change, how long can the borders hold before everyone outside is let in, or everyone inside decides it’s not worth staying, and leaves?”

I don’t know how many citizens are giving two sh*ts over the Grammys; Typical misdirect from the clueless left- it serves as a better warning for the elites who still aren’t listening to the people and what they want, even after the victory of Trump nailed it to their skulls.

It's interesting how race ends up being the Diversity Category that matters at the end of the day. One day, all women are marching together as one, but the next a white woman wins an award and all of a sudden white women are almost as bad as white males. I'm reminded of the recent Hayek-Williams drama.

I'm not sure if this is more revealing of human nature or the obsessions of journalists.

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they’ll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it’ll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don’t want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

Now, if we took these people as honest, we’d say “OK let’s just create a White and Nonwhite Grammy awards, where the White awards can nominate anyone, but the Nonwhite awards can nominate only non-whites.

But really it’s not about that, which is why they’re so dishonest. They don’t want to just receive awards, ultimately they want recognition from White society. They want to actually tear down White culture, and install themselves as its successor.

Nevermind the harm caused to musical arts in general. Nevermind that White rock acts go unrecognized now. No, they want it all, and screw anyone who has the gall to let Black Genius go unrecognized.

Anon, Is there Asian fusion music or just cuisine? I don’t see any Asians winning anything.

I recall a couple of earworms from Chow Yun Fat gun fu movies in the 80's. No idea if these are representative of the Asian music industry. There's also that golden oldie "Sukiyaki". But that was obviously decades ago.

Honestly, Beyonce disgusts me almost as much as Madonna. It’s kind of distressing for me to see her mentioned here, especially since I always see her trussed up like a capon on the tabloids while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Seriously! I see more attractive black women than Beyoncé walking down the street on a day to day basis. But then, that goes for the majority of media-endorsed celebs, white or black. Now, Taylor Swift... there's a creature you'll be lucky to lay eyes upon even once in your life...

Kpop - absolutely massive with teenage girls around the world right now. South Korea and Japan are the only two countries outside of the Anglosphere with viable cultural export industries and significant soft power.

Honestly, Beyonce disgusts me almost as much as Madonna. It's kind of distressing for me to see her mentioned here, especially since I always see her trussed up like a capon on the tabloids while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Seriously! I see more attractive black women than Beyoncé walking down the street on a day to day basis. But then, that goes for the majority of media-endorsed celebs, white or black. Now, Taylor Swift… there’s a creature you’ll be lucky to lay eyes upon even once in your life…

How about the fact that no one under 30 has ever paid for recorded music in his/her life? This is hardly news. I don’t listen to popular music. But Adele is the only real star that I’ve noticed in the last decade. Someone you know and can recognize her music and not think about it. CD’s are on life support. Since I use Apple products, I can’t play them. Of course, since I have a traditional vehicle (old), I can play CD’s there.

The point being that the notion of a popular music singing star is needing to face the reality of a highly disrupted industry. At the same time, there are a huge number of ‘youth’ that are playing music. Its not like people aren’t interested and active.

Missed where Zeppelin, the Who, PInk Floyd, ZZ Top, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, et al won all those Grammies while beating out downtrodden African-American artists. Reality is the Grammies have always been about the music industry making people who don’t sell that many records feel really good about themselves, spare Michael Jackson.

Neil Diamond’s Rock N Roll HoF induction speech was about as classy as a BIG FVCK YOU there has ever been to the likes of said big time record industry in general and and Jan Wenner especially. Said in so many words, my fans know I am in fact a great artist with a tremendous catalogue of great songs, I have sold tons of records and still sell out arenas in 10 minutes, and the artsy fartsy douchebags they celebrate instead of him would soon be doing something other than music with their lives. Have no idea what his politics are (a Brooklyn Jew, I could guess) but was Donald Trump before Donald Trump.

My neighbour likes Adele but is technologically clueless, so I downloaded all her albums from The Pirate Bay and burnt them to CD for him. I listened to a few of the tracks and they seemed kind of bland.

“But when an institution stands still while its citizens are pressing for change…” They’re not. You are. The press is. So, we know its elite owners are the ones actually pressing for change – even though the kind of change called for occurred long ago. So we also know – in addition to who really wants this holy change – that they want some other kind of change than what they’re talking about. That this change isn’t discussed, even obscured, is somewhat unsettling.

“…How long can the borders hold before everyone outside is let in?” Ah – figured that’s what you had in mind. ‘Everyone’ spells ‘crowded’, Chico. It pleases me to no end that your particular brand of dumbass does not yet call the shots.

“Or everyone inside decides it’s not worth staying, and leaves?” Oh Happy Day! It won’t be everyone. Someone will have to bon voyage you visionaries. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that day will never come. Unless we end up paying you assholes to self-deport.

My dream is for white people to quit listening to this trash and switch exclusively to White Supremacist music. You know, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, the list goes on. Go to classical concerts, support radio stations, teach your kids. This is our heritage, let’s not lose it.

(By the way, I have nothing against blacks listening to or playing classical music. It just ain’t happening. I went to a concert a few days ago. A large hall in a big city and not a single black person either in the audience or on stage. The only place you could find a black face was on the cover of Playbill. Of course.)

Last night David Bowie won 5 Grammys after his death. But David Bowie never even won a Grammy until 1985. So all his best output in the 1970s didn’t merit anything from these people. And arguably his biggest and most famous collaboration with Queen , “Under Pressure”, won nothing. If you want to talk about outrage, the guy had to die before they really honored him.

I suspect a lot of the praise for Beyoncé is a reflection of the demographics of music critics — she’s a clever beta-male white guy’s fantasy version of a Sexy Black Chick. She also appears to be the standard that many smart black women measure themselves against, for some reason.

Actual black men, and white men who regularly date black women, tend to have somewhat different tastes…

Just a gut feeling,but speaking as a white male who has zero attraction to Beyonce,I'd have to say this is wrong. She is an icon for (especially) black women but also latina,mixed race of various sorts,young white women...and gays of all stripes. Call it The Beyonce Paradox:The gal whose act is explicitly sexual appeals to those who don't have any sexual desire FOR her,that is women and gays. All she ever sings about is how "fierce"she is,etc ad nauseum.

Daley administration had a system of hiring where applicants would be given really EASY tests. So, a lot of people would qualify and then some would be chosen randomly.

See how ‘inclusive’ that system is?

The real problem with these awards is that the very idea of awards is exclusive to begin with. After all, there are tons of stuff that comes out every year. If the whole point of Awards is to favor and celebrate ONLY THE BEST, then so much get left out,and only a handful hog all the prizes, accolades, and money.

This is why the NBA is so exclusive and unfair. It only looks for best players. What it should really do is give easy test for all would-be ballplayers. So ANYONE who can dribble a ball and make one shot out of 10 would qualify. And out of all these applicants, five would randomly chosen for any team. That way, LA Lakers will have some Mexers. Actually teams should have 50 players than just 5. As the US population increases, it’s only right for teams to hire more players and give them more playing space. Now, 100 players on the basketball court may seem crowded. Then, the court must be expanded about 4x.

So, this is the way to fix the grammies. To be nominated, you only need to sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. That is GOOD ENOUGH. And then out of 1000s of nominations, 100 are chosen as co-winners. We need to get rid of the idea of top winner or ‘best’. Let 100 winners be co-winners. Choosing ONE person as the best is elitist, exclusive, hierarchical, and supremacist.

So, next year, 1000s of singers would be nominated on the basis that they can sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. And then, out of all those nominees, 100 will be randomly chosen to be co-winners.
The Chicago Way.

No, no, that's not the way to do it. Everyone who wants to win a Grammy can fill out a ballot and turn it in to the Grammy awards. All of the ballots are put into a basket and the winners are drawn at random.
Oh, and you automatically get signed up every time you purchase a Big Mac at MacDonald's.

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they'll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it'll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don't want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

White Privilege would be a good name for a band. Wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear to the Grannys, er.. Grammys either.

I haven't paid attention to the Grammys since grade school. I too figured out they were never going to award them to any songs I liked. However, I loathe the current generation of tuneless top 40 pop chanteuses with the fire of a thousands suns. They used to give Grammys to artists who honestly did something to deserve them. This is pretty good example of the sort of artist and song who used to win Grammys, which wasn't bad at all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ifw8JhDBvs

However, the sort of female singing I prefer these days is more like this, and it's certainly never going to win a Grammy from the current crowd of bores:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hp2_Fac7ic

As for Taylor Swift, the best thing that ever happened to one of her songs was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm1-bVYio1k

The Gits! Glad to see them remembered. Great band. And a chilling cautionary tale if ever I heard one. “Diversity” kills.

Glad to have you all to apprise me of the goings on in the cultural sewer. Since I cut my cable 7 years ago, it seems like this stuff happens in another country, or something I see bits of on biz trips using the hotel tv.

Isn’t this just another data point confirming that Affirmative Action in its various guises (either official or by guilt tripping of whites or toleration of asinine antics by PoC)…is just a veiled war on meritocracy?

Isn’t this just another data point confirming that Affirmative Action in its various guises (either official or by guilt tripping of whites or toleration of asinine antics by PoC)…is just a veiled war on meritocracy?

Speaking from the perspective of a geezer in Pretoria - you are just so right. AA is mandated incompetence.

Missed where Zeppelin, the Who, PInk Floyd, ZZ Top, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, et al won all those Grammies while beating out downtrodden African-American artists. Reality is the Grammies have always been about the music industry making people who don't sell that many records feel really good about themselves, spare Michael Jackson.

Neil Diamond's Rock N Roll HoF induction speech was about as classy as a BIG FVCK YOU there has ever been to the likes of said big time record industry in general and and Jan Wenner especially. Said in so many words, my fans know I am in fact a great artist with a tremendous catalogue of great songs, I have sold tons of records and still sell out arenas in 10 minutes, and the artsy fartsy douchebags they celebrate instead of him would soon be doing something other than music with their lives. Have no idea what his politics are (a Brooklyn Jew, I could guess) but was Donald Trump before Donald Trump.

I took a look at the list of winners/nominees on the Grammy’s website and my eyes just glazed over halfway through. So many sub-categories, 84 awards in all. How long did this self-congratulatory circle jerk run for?

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they'll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it'll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don't want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

Nice white lady politicians in Germany and Sweden have invited many nonwhites to their countries.

I took a look at the list of winners/nominees on the Grammy's website and my eyes just glazed over halfway through. So many sub-categories, 84 awards in all. How long did this self-congratulatory circle jerk run for?

I think awards shows are now virtually a daily occurence. Hollywood and the Music Biz just can’t pat themselves on the back enough.

This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They're ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum.

What a dumb time to be alive.

“This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They’re ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum.”

Indeed. Stevie Wonder is a musician. Kanye West is a post-modern minstrel-show performer.

> Have you ever noticed that basically everything you are supposed to believe in these days — feminism, diversity, etc. — turns out in practice to just be another way for hot babes, rich guys, super salesmen, cunning financiers, telegenic self-promoters, and charismatic politicians to get even more money and power?

Steve, scribblers are nowhere to be seen on your list. True, they signed up to be Journalists in an era where the prospects for money and power diminish further with each passing year. But virtue signalling is rewarding. Very rewarding, from the evidence in the OP.

The primary problem with the grammys is that people don’t know what they’re for.

Like, fine, if best album goes to whoever sold the most records then whatever. Make that the primary determinant of who gets best album and I don’t think there’d be any grounds for complaint. If complaints still existed then they’d be easy to dismiss. As it stands people can be justifiably annoyed because radio garbage gets rewarded to the exclusion of the genuinely interesting, and the show persists in acting as if what it’s rewarding is artistic excellence.

Honestly, Beyonce disgusts me almost as much as Madonna. It's kind of distressing for me to see her mentioned here, especially since I always see her trussed up like a capon on the tabloids while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Kpop – absolutely massive with teenage girls around the world right now. South Korea and Japan are the only two countries outside of the Anglosphere with viable cultural export industries and significant soft power.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that’s just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple’s streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon’s service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy’s were the music industry’s free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that’s not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There’s not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth — lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES “We Built This City” is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and “Attitude” divas who can’t sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That’s a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

I've often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics. You had a lot of young, white, perceptive and intelligent people with a bit of money and time on their hands, and they supported the artists they liked by buying their records and going to their concerts. Then that audience graduated from high school and college, went out and got a job, got married and had kids, and the next thing you knew, they were too busy to listen to new music anymore, and couldn't sort through the huge mass of new bands to find the good ones. Thus, the good, new artists from the 1990s onward ended up languishing in real obscurity.

Pop music sales today reflect the tastes of people who are (ahem) underemployed, and who actually have the time to listen to music, follow particular artists, and buy their records, although this segment of the market doesn't have much money.

In other words, what hits the charts reflects the taste of those people who are largely on welfare. The problem is, people who are chronically unemployed tend to lack any brains or talent that could be attractive to an employer, and untalented people tend to have terrible taste. Taste is a type of talent, in fact. Because of this nasty turn of fate, it's the tasteless who create today's trendsetters. It remind me of the old saying about how the worst people in the military are the ones who are incompetent, but who are also energetic and have time on their hands. They can wreck havoc, so it's imperative to get rid of them as fast as possible.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

It's not remembered today, but in the 1960s there were a fair number of twenties crooners and vaudevillians that made a living in their dotage playing colleges. Rudy Vallee and Eddie Peabody were two that come to mind. Tiny Tim was a throwback to that era, he was a first rate scholar of 1920s music and very much tried to sing in that tradition, although it came out a little warped.

Now, people in their seventies front rock bands and it is remarked on only whimsically and as an aside.

However, those white musicians are the top of live music business. Guns-n-Roses played two nights at Chicago's Soldier Field last year, during a year-long tour of football stadiums on every continent except Antarctica. Metallica will be following this year. Lil' Yachty won't be needing 55 tractor-trailers anytime soon. Even Neil Diamond plays multiple nights at NBA/NHL arenas. Bless his heart. GnR was three hours of greatness, by the way. They are professionals.

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they'll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it'll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don't want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

I thought that movie “The Help” was pretty much emblematic of this peculiar liberal white woman fantasy.

The over the top Beyonce worshopsto virtue signal by SJWs is right up there with their tendency to try to reduce everything down to Harry Potter/Star Wars references as a sign of how stupid mass culture makes you.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that's just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple's streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon's service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy's were the music industry's free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that's not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There's not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth -- lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES "We Built This City" is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and "Attitude" divas who can't sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That's a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that's just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple's streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon's service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy's were the music industry's free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that's not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There's not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth -- lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES "We Built This City" is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and "Attitude" divas who can't sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That's a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

I’ve often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics. You had a lot of young, white, perceptive and intelligent people with a bit of money and time on their hands, and they supported the artists they liked by buying their records and going to their concerts. Then that audience graduated from high school and college, went out and got a job, got married and had kids, and the next thing you knew, they were too busy to listen to new music anymore, and couldn’t sort through the huge mass of new bands to find the good ones. Thus, the good, new artists from the 1990s onward ended up languishing in real obscurity.

Pop music sales today reflect the tastes of people who are (ahem) underemployed, and who actually have the time to listen to music, follow particular artists, and buy their records, although this segment of the market doesn’t have much money.

In other words, what hits the charts reflects the taste of those people who are largely on welfare. The problem is, people who are chronically unemployed tend to lack any brains or talent that could be attractive to an employer, and untalented people tend to have terrible taste. Taste is a type of talent, in fact. Because of this nasty turn of fate, it’s the tasteless who create today’s trendsetters. It remind me of the old saying about how the worst people in the military are the ones who are incompetent, but who are also energetic and have time on their hands. They can wreck havoc, so it’s imperative to get rid of them as fast as possible.

"I’ve often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics."

These things have ups and downs.

Early 60s was relatively lackluster though Brill did churn out great stuff. And there was the phenomenal Phil Specter. 60s did have explosion of great pop music, but things kinda got dull in the early 70s. Some will cite punk, but I think it was a disaster. Bad attitude and stupid. There was disco, good dance music, but silly.
By late 70s and early 80s, music was BAD. So bad that I thought it was over. It was the time of Air Supply, Styx, Journey, and etc. But then, there was an uptick as mid-80s approached, but most of these were one-hit or two-hit wonders OR the swan song of established acts. BORN IN USA, SYNCHRONICITY, THRILLER, and etc were the last great album of these guys.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that's just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple's streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon's service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy's were the music industry's free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that's not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There's not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth -- lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES "We Built This City" is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and "Attitude" divas who can't sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That's a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

It’s not remembered today, but in the 1960s there were a fair number of twenties crooners and vaudevillians that made a living in their dotage playing colleges. Rudy Vallee and Eddie Peabody were two that come to mind. Tiny Tim was a throwback to that era, he was a first rate scholar of 1920s music and very much tried to sing in that tradition, although it came out a little warped.

Now, people in their seventies front rock bands and it is remarked on only whimsically and as an aside.

I don't intentionally listen to either of them, but it's hard to avoid Adele if you're white and under 40. She's not without talent, even if it's not my thing. The missus is an admirer.

My neighbour likes Adele but is technologically clueless, so I downloaded all her albums from The Pirate Bay and burnt them to CD for him. I listened to a few of the tracks and they seemed kind of bland.

Adele, like JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, used to be on Britain’s dole, but used her public support to lift herself out of poverty, so that makes her story worthy of praise, to show that public dole and statism is the lifeblood of a modern Western democracy. This is one of the few messages that will trump the diversity theme.

The Grammys are like Thomas Friedman – they are wrong every single time, yet only get more publicity and praise.

When I was a kid and first started to learn about all the good rock music I remember thinking “wow, I’ll bet that back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s the Grammy awards must read like a catalog of amazing acts from those days, as opposed to the terrible pop now. It must just be one long list of Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, The Band, The Clash, Steely Dan, Bob Marley, Allman Brothers, Elvis Costello, Rush, REM, etc.” At one point I looked it up and… nope. These awards have always gone to pop divas, one hit wonders, and celebrities.

As evidence of their wrong-headeness, I think they once gave some sort of ‘best heavy metal’ award to Jethro Tull.

I can’t believe that anyone actually cares about the Grammys. Yet another sign of the frivolity of our culture and most of the people in it.

There is a very talented young Hispanic singer from Detroit named Jessica Hernandez. She writes from an American Gothic, culture of decay point of view so I don’t they will consider her. Very moving stuff.

They do, but they're underreported, and for good reason. There's a long history of fights breaking out at award shows for blacks, and liberals don't want whites to know that. Blacks can't have a family reunion without fights breaking out, or an awards show, either. Black society gatherings are like that in general.

New Englanders who support the Boston Red Sox have enjoyed listening to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” for many years. Perhaps they play it at Fenway Park.

I hate Neil Diamond, and especially his damn song “Coming To America.”

I also hate the Koch brothers and the many GOP minions they sponsor in New Hampshire. Just to get on my nerves the Koch whores who did this video used “Coming To America” as my image appeared. I am somewhat known for my efforts to halt all immigration to the USA in New Hampshire, and these Koch boobs did this just to annoy me. Did it work? Yes.

I am the guy in the White baseball cap wearing a grey shirt with the NH politician lady in red, Pam Tucker. Pam Tucker is in with the Koch boys heavy. Tucker was a big supporter of the Illegal Alien Amnesty / Mass Immigration Surge bill(S744) from June of 2013. Tucker’s pal, former US Senator Kelly Ayotte, voted for that bill.

The relevant part starts right off the bat at 5 seconds in on this Koch boys video:

President Trump will help New Hampshire politicians in 2018 if he calls for a complete and total halt to all immigration into the United States.

And in bars. Diversity not knowing the lyrics to it is a cultural divide broader than Steve's post or the NYT article suggests. Whites are more familiar with black music than the reverse.

Anybody of a certain age in the Greater Boston area grew up listening to the local college bar troubadours like Jim Plunkett and DJ Sullivan playing Sweet Caroline, an upbeat singalong kind of song, every night around town and down on the Cape at the old Mill Hill Club and The Improper Bostonian during the summer.

Sweet Caroline doesn’t remind me of the Red $ox; it reminds me of the summers I spent chasing tail at the Improper!

Daley administration had a system of hiring where applicants would be given really EASY tests. So, a lot of people would qualify and then some would be chosen randomly.

See how 'inclusive' that system is?

The real problem with these awards is that the very idea of awards is exclusive to begin with. After all, there are tons of stuff that comes out every year. If the whole point of Awards is to favor and celebrate ONLY THE BEST, then so much get left out,and only a handful hog all the prizes, accolades, and money.

This is why the NBA is so exclusive and unfair. It only looks for best players. What it should really do is give easy test for all would-be ballplayers. So ANYONE who can dribble a ball and make one shot out of 10 would qualify. And out of all these applicants, five would randomly chosen for any team. That way, LA Lakers will have some Mexers. Actually teams should have 50 players than just 5. As the US population increases, it's only right for teams to hire more players and give them more playing space. Now, 100 players on the basketball court may seem crowded. Then, the court must be expanded about 4x.

So, this is the way to fix the grammies. To be nominated, you only need to sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. That is GOOD ENOUGH. And then out of 1000s of nominations, 100 are chosen as co-winners. We need to get rid of the idea of top winner or 'best'. Let 100 winners be co-winners. Choosing ONE person as the best is elitist, exclusive, hierarchical, and supremacist.

So, next year, 1000s of singers would be nominated on the basis that they can sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. And then, out of all those nominees, 100 will be randomly chosen to be co-winners. The Chicago Way.

So much fairer.

No, no, that’s not the way to do it. Everyone who wants to win a Grammy can fill out a ballot and turn it in to the Grammy awards. All of the ballots are put into a basket and the winners are drawn at random.
Oh, and you automatically get signed up every time you purchase a Big Mac at MacDonald’s.

At the end of the day Beyoncé’s music just isn’t that good. She plays no instrument. Her “songs” are repetitious catchphrases, sexual innuendo, and the word “boy” scattered in like a handful of pepper. Can she sing? Seems like she might be able to. She has the capacity to carry notes, yet, for some reason, chooses to talk, yell, and maybe hit a crescendo here and there. The lyrics to her songs are base, fundamental. Reading them is like reading an eighth grade attempt at writing a song for someone’s crush. Maybe, at the end of the day, “Lemonade” just wasn’t that good an album.
This is what happens when “artists” begin to believe in their marketability. They have little talent, loads of money, plenty of visual appeal, and oodles of publicity. However, stick them up against a real artist; someone who can write, sing, play, and genuinely perform (not distract with gaudy costumes and pyrotechnics) and they wonder why they continually lose. Beyoncé, for all her marketability and her music industry power marriage to Jay-Z, just isn’t that talented. What do Beck, Swift, and Adele have in common? They can all write songs. They all three write GREAT songs (think what you want about Swift’s time in bubblegum “country”, but that kid can write some serious lyrics). Beyoncé can only really manage a passable angry hissy fit set to a bass line.
She didn’t lose because she’s black. She didn’t lose because of racism. She lost because she’s not as good as she thinks she is. Give her a participation trophy if you like. Me? I think it’s high time everybody stop coddling people like her (entitled morons who think identity trumps skill). The truth hurts and, baby, the truth is you. Just. Ain’t. That. Good.

Glad to have you all to apprise me of the goings on in the cultural sewer. Since I cut my cable 7 years ago, it seems like this stuff happens in another country, or something I see bits of on biz trips using the hotel tv.

Isn't this just another data point confirming that Affirmative Action in its various guises (either official or by guilt tripping of whites or toleration of asinine antics by PoC)...is just a veiled war on meritocracy?

Isn’t this just another data point confirming that Affirmative Action in its various guises (either official or by guilt tripping of whites or toleration of asinine antics by PoC)…is just a veiled war on meritocracy?

Speaking from the perspective of a geezer in Pretoria – you are just so right. AA is mandated incompetence.

I've often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics. You had a lot of young, white, perceptive and intelligent people with a bit of money and time on their hands, and they supported the artists they liked by buying their records and going to their concerts. Then that audience graduated from high school and college, went out and got a job, got married and had kids, and the next thing you knew, they were too busy to listen to new music anymore, and couldn't sort through the huge mass of new bands to find the good ones. Thus, the good, new artists from the 1990s onward ended up languishing in real obscurity.

Pop music sales today reflect the tastes of people who are (ahem) underemployed, and who actually have the time to listen to music, follow particular artists, and buy their records, although this segment of the market doesn't have much money.

In other words, what hits the charts reflects the taste of those people who are largely on welfare. The problem is, people who are chronically unemployed tend to lack any brains or talent that could be attractive to an employer, and untalented people tend to have terrible taste. Taste is a type of talent, in fact. Because of this nasty turn of fate, it's the tasteless who create today's trendsetters. It remind me of the old saying about how the worst people in the military are the ones who are incompetent, but who are also energetic and have time on their hands. They can wreck havoc, so it's imperative to get rid of them as fast as possible.

Same reasons fast food and pizza are so popular. Taste is a type of talent.

Graphic novels, also known as comic books, get the literary treatment now. Tolstoy? Dickens? Not so much. Even if the plots are equally absurd.

They do, but they’re underreported, and for good reason. There’s a long history of fights breaking out at award shows for blacks, and liberals don’t want whites to know that. Blacks can’t have a family reunion without fights breaking out, or an awards show, either. Black society gatherings are like that in general.

My neighbour likes Adele but is technologically clueless, so I downloaded all her albums from The Pirate Bay and burnt them to CD for him. I listened to a few of the tracks and they seemed kind of bland.

I have to agree. I’ve only heard a couple of her hit songs but I found them to be utterly boring. I would never choose to listen to them for my own entertainment.

"This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They’re ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum."

Indeed. Stevie Wonder is a musician. Kanye West is a post-modern minstrel-show performer.

I don’t know why we need to pile on the minstrel show insult pile. Those performers were actual musicians, as much as any popular musicians, and moreso than most of today’s studio creations.

"I don’t know why we need to pile on the minstrel show insult pile. Those performers were actual musicians, as much as any popular musicians, and moreso than most of today’s studio creations."

You are right, of course. I was just looking for a term which is generally considered to be demeaning. Perhaps Lawn Jockey would have been a better choice. The fact is - as you point out - those now reviled minstrel-show performers were far more talented, and far less embarrassing to their race, than rappers are.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that's just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple's streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon's service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy's were the music industry's free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that's not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There's not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth -- lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES "We Built This City" is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and "Attitude" divas who can't sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That's a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

However, those white musicians are the top of live music business. Guns-n-Roses played two nights at Chicago’s Soldier Field last year, during a year-long tour of football stadiums on every continent except Antarctica. Metallica will be following this year. Lil’ Yachty won’t be needing 55 tractor-trailers anytime soon. Even Neil Diamond plays multiple nights at NBA/NHL arenas. Bless his heart. GnR was three hours of greatness, by the way. They are professionals.

I've often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics. You had a lot of young, white, perceptive and intelligent people with a bit of money and time on their hands, and they supported the artists they liked by buying their records and going to their concerts. Then that audience graduated from high school and college, went out and got a job, got married and had kids, and the next thing you knew, they were too busy to listen to new music anymore, and couldn't sort through the huge mass of new bands to find the good ones. Thus, the good, new artists from the 1990s onward ended up languishing in real obscurity.

Pop music sales today reflect the tastes of people who are (ahem) underemployed, and who actually have the time to listen to music, follow particular artists, and buy their records, although this segment of the market doesn't have much money.

In other words, what hits the charts reflects the taste of those people who are largely on welfare. The problem is, people who are chronically unemployed tend to lack any brains or talent that could be attractive to an employer, and untalented people tend to have terrible taste. Taste is a type of talent, in fact. Because of this nasty turn of fate, it's the tasteless who create today's trendsetters. It remind me of the old saying about how the worst people in the military are the ones who are incompetent, but who are also energetic and have time on their hands. They can wreck havoc, so it's imperative to get rid of them as fast as possible.

“I’ve often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics.”

These things have ups and downs.

Early 60s was relatively lackluster though Brill did churn out great stuff. And there was the phenomenal Phil Specter. 60s did have explosion of great pop music, but things kinda got dull in the early 70s. Some will cite punk, but I think it was a disaster. Bad attitude and stupid. There was disco, good dance music, but silly.
By late 70s and early 80s, music was BAD. So bad that I thought it was over. It was the time of Air Supply, Styx, Journey, and etc. But then, there was an uptick as mid-80s approached, but most of these were one-hit or two-hit wonders OR the swan song of established acts. BORN IN USA, SYNCHRONICITY, THRILLER, and etc were the last great album of these guys.

Alice in Chains' Laine Staley should get honorable mention amid a sea of contemporaneous banality. Most of Michael Jackson's pre 1985 stuff was good as pop music goes. But it seems the artist departed somewhere thereabout, leaving a semi-animate paedophilic pseudo-corpse occupying the center of a creative vacuum.

The music business is in big, big trouble. Revenues are still less than half than what they were in 1999. (Insert Prince Joke Here). Streaming has seen a bit of an uptick, but that's just people in South Korea and parts of Asia with cheap, high-speed internet paying for things. Streaming is not making much money, indeed most companies are losing a bundle: Tidal (most of all), even Spotify. Apple's streaming service can be cross-subsidized by Iphone sales, but not forever. Same with Amazon's service. And they still require fast internet connections and cheap ones too.

The Grammy's were the music industry's free, two hour long plus commercial, and all they had was Beyonce and Adele. Or Kendrick Lamar.

The two Kevins, Grace and Steel, are correct that the music business only wants women, preteen girls, gays, and Blacks. But that's not enough to make money. Most rap albums/artists are just money laundering operations. There's not real money in a bunch of ghetto dwellers in Atlanta poneying up big bucks to see Lil Wayne, for example.

Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. The collapse of the popular music scene in around 1993 or so is a function of the birth dearth -- lack of critical mass of young White people to support a club scene and various new independent musical movements that produced excitement, emotion, and opened wallets just to have that music. Its not as if young dudes stopped listening to music, they just listen to stuff their fathers and grandfathers listened to: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey, Survivor, Starship (far, far superior to Airplane and YES "We Built This City" is a MASTERFUL SONG and NO I AM NOT KIDDING). Even Sinatra and Nat King Cole. To say nothing of Elvis, or Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Roger Miller, or Willie Nelson. AT BEST the Music business can sell back catalogs to the radio (the ultimate free streaming device) or cheap downloads.

If it took 10,000 garage bands of young dudes wanting to look cool for chicks to produce the Replacements, it probably took 1,000,000 to produce the Stones, U2, or AC/DC. The music business only knows how to package tuneless pop tart sluts, boy band twinks, Black ghetto minstrel acts, and "Attitude" divas who can't sing. None of that will have the global appeal that the Stones, or U2, or Bowie, or Aerosmith, or heck even CHEAP TRICK had at their peaks. Much less the money they produced.

There is probably an arbitrage opportunity for someone to produce a dirt-cheap business model that finds and brings along young male acts in exchange for reasonable, non-exploitative shares of revenue streams (capped at say, 5% beyond five years) through internet video distribution and virtual concerts. Young men still like music, like girls looking at them being cool. And without the sheer aggregate genius of young White men music will simply die. That's a pity.

Young dudes listening to Bruce Springsteen now is like young dudes in the sixties being really into Al Jolson and Bix Biederbecke.

“Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. ”

But rock idiom has played itself out. I mean who wants another imitation of Stones, Beatles, and etc?

Rap works better in imitation because its very essence is imitation. So, when a new rapper sounds like old rappers, it’s nature of the genre.

But we still expect something NEW from rock, and rock played itself out.

By far the most creatively demanding modern popular genre is salsa. No other genre is really close. There are essentially no limits to what can be stated because the "chordal vocabulary", if you will, is nearly as expansive as the Spanish language itself. None of this grab-muh-d*** Cmaj-Fmaj-Gmaj-Fmaj-Cmaj loop noise. Salsa music employs real arrangers, guys that would give Nelson Riddle, Billy May or Gordon Jenkins a run for their money.

And it has the added benefit of Latin rhythms, in which the violence and mortal tension which historically pervaded the locales where the music evolved are intrinsic to it. It's natural substrate is that of unfettered licentiousness and armed revolt, and it still has a direct line to the mind's coke-high simulation center.

Maybe Latin music is the next big thing because everything else has been played out. But rap was essentially played out with NWA, yet somehow the crack epidemic's fumes have kept that engine churning out new iterations, each worse than the last, for decades.

At the end of the day Beyoncé's music just isn't that good. She plays no instrument. Her "songs" are repetitious catchphrases, sexual innuendo, and the word "boy" scattered in like a handful of pepper. Can she sing? Seems like she might be able to. She has the capacity to carry notes, yet, for some reason, chooses to talk, yell, and maybe hit a crescendo here and there. The lyrics to her songs are base, fundamental. Reading them is like reading an eighth grade attempt at writing a song for someone's crush. Maybe, at the end of the day, "Lemonade" just wasn't that good an album.
This is what happens when "artists" begin to believe in their marketability. They have little talent, loads of money, plenty of visual appeal, and oodles of publicity. However, stick them up against a real artist; someone who can write, sing, play, and genuinely perform (not distract with gaudy costumes and pyrotechnics) and they wonder why they continually lose. Beyoncé, for all her marketability and her music industry power marriage to Jay-Z, just isn't that talented. What do Beck, Swift, and Adele have in common? They can all write songs. They all three write GREAT songs (think what you want about Swift's time in bubblegum "country", but that kid can write some serious lyrics). Beyoncé can only really manage a passable angry hissy fit set to a bass line.
She didn't lose because she's black. She didn't lose because of racism. She lost because she's not as good as she thinks she is. Give her a participation trophy if you like. Me? I think it's high time everybody stop coddling people like her (entitled morons who think identity trumps skill). The truth hurts and, baby, the truth is you. Just. Ain't. That. Good.

“Sweet Caroline” is the song a girl played endlessly all night long at a sleepover I attended in the 6th grade in 1969. Then there’s the execrable “Coming to America.” Neil Diamond is the straight guy’s Elton John. Wouldn’t waste my time listening to either.

My older kid listens to all White European rock – opera metal and various other groups, some people may have heard of (Dropkick Murphys, Nightwish) and many rather obscure. A lot of it is not to my taste, but I liked a recent one a great deal and cranked it up LOUD at the gym yesterday to drown out the Negro woman talking on her phone: Volbeat “The Bliss”

Hey thanks. I really liked that Volbeat song. Never heard of them (why should I? I don't listen to popular music by choice) but I may go exploring. Sort of a combo of an 80's ballad and an evangelical praise song, with no disturbing images.

Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” was played on the jukebox incessantly at a New Hampshire ale house that was frequented by rabid fans of the Boston Red Sox. The ale house dwellers would all sing along happily to “Sweet Caroline.” I first encountered this New England ale house lunacy about 15 years ago. The internet says it started in the late 1990s before the 8th inning of Red Sox games at Fenway Park. This may be a ripoff of the famed playing of “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra at Yankee stadium.

I have always thought there was a special form of genius involved in getting New Englanders to say this one line over and over again: “I hate the Yankees.” Many don’t seem to see the delicious humor in that.

The “Sweet Caroline” thing is a bit of harmless crowd-delirium as explained by Huxley. I would counter it at the ale house by playing Talking Heads on the jukebox to up the ante on rhythmic repetitiveness to induce a mild transcendent state.

Epilog of the book Devils Of Loudun — by Aldous Huxley — it’s worth a read.

I first watched the Grammies in 1974. Since then, out of 44 Best Album Grammies, at least 15 have gone to non-white artists (three to Stevie Wonder, one to Michael Jackson, one to Quincy Jones, one to Lauryn Hill, one to OutKast, one to Ray Charles, one to Whitney Houston, one to Natalie Cole, one to Lionel Richie, one to Herbie Hancock, one to Norah Jones, one to Carlos Santana).

This clique of overexposed music celebs is so annoying. They're ALL mediocrities! At least Stevie Wonder was a real composer/arranger talent. The musical IQ dropoff between Stevie Wonder and Kanye is 30 points minimum.

What a dumb time to be alive.

Any analogue of IQ would be a poor measure of musical talent. It’s like saying Floyd Mayweather can squat 150 pounds more than some high school lacrosse player. Sure, he’s quite a bit stronger, but when you put the two of them in the ring, it doesn’t quite capture the extent of the difference.

Musical talent is made up of a lot more than IQ or anything that looks like IQ, just like baseball talent is made up of a lot more than 40 meter time. I agree that Stevie Wonder is talented, although I’ll take Rachmaninoff or Scriabin over him any day.

However, if Stevie Wonder is the musical equivalent of a respectably good NFL quarterback, most going pop stars are getting cut from JV tryouts.

Daley administration had a system of hiring where applicants would be given really EASY tests. So, a lot of people would qualify and then some would be chosen randomly.

See how 'inclusive' that system is?

The real problem with these awards is that the very idea of awards is exclusive to begin with. After all, there are tons of stuff that comes out every year. If the whole point of Awards is to favor and celebrate ONLY THE BEST, then so much get left out,and only a handful hog all the prizes, accolades, and money.

This is why the NBA is so exclusive and unfair. It only looks for best players. What it should really do is give easy test for all would-be ballplayers. So ANYONE who can dribble a ball and make one shot out of 10 would qualify. And out of all these applicants, five would randomly chosen for any team. That way, LA Lakers will have some Mexers. Actually teams should have 50 players than just 5. As the US population increases, it's only right for teams to hire more players and give them more playing space. Now, 100 players on the basketball court may seem crowded. Then, the court must be expanded about 4x.

So, this is the way to fix the grammies. To be nominated, you only need to sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. That is GOOD ENOUGH. And then out of 1000s of nominations, 100 are chosen as co-winners. We need to get rid of the idea of top winner or 'best'. Let 100 winners be co-winners. Choosing ONE person as the best is elitist, exclusive, hierarchical, and supremacist.

So, next year, 1000s of singers would be nominated on the basis that they can sing somewhat or play an instrument somewhat. And then, out of all those nominees, 100 will be randomly chosen to be co-winners. The Chicago Way.

So much fairer.

Assuming the awards ceremony in your example is the music business itself, you just accurately described pop music for the last 30 years.

Anybody of a certain age in the Greater Boston area grew up listening to the local college bar troubadours like Jim Plunkett and DJ Sullivan playing Sweet Caroline, an upbeat singalong kind of song, every night around town and down on the Cape at the old Mill Hill Club and The Improper Bostonian during the summer.

Sweet Caroline doesn't remind me of the Red $ox; it reminds me of the summers I spent chasing tail at the Improper!

No, no, that's not the way to do it. Everyone who wants to win a Grammy can fill out a ballot and turn it in to the Grammy awards. All of the ballots are put into a basket and the winners are drawn at random.
Oh, and you automatically get signed up every time you purchase a Big Mac at MacDonald's.

Actors and Musicians should stick to their trade and stop playing with race cards and politics. Most of these musicians aren’t worth listening too, watching them display their personalities and opinions on stage makes my face cringe like the instant I see a car accident.

Two culture peaks we are witnessing in real time that I personally detest and wish for instant death to all those who engage

These days, pop divas almost all have huge numbers of predominantly white (often Swedish) male songwriters and producers.

#GrammysSoSwedish

“And the award for best song, not written by a Swedish guy using computer algorithms, goes to…”

Beyoncé should hit back at Adele and the Grammy judges by entitling her next album “23″–as in the total number of Grammys she expects to have been awarded before this time next year if they don’t want her to organize a walkout amongst her fellow “artists of color” at next year’s Grammy gala.

In the meantime though, she can console herself by knowing that over the course of his almost 50-year career in popular music, the late, mega-popular Mexican singer, Juan Gabriel (who looked increasingly non-white as he got older), was never even recognized with a single award by the mainstream American music establishment. He had to settle for recognition from that “other” music awards event, the Latin Grammys –and posthumously at that!

For those unfamiliar with Juan Gabriel’s music, here’s one of his better songs:

Coincidentally, it happens to be from around the same time that Beyoncé was born:

Reminds me of an isteve post from awhile ago where a Jew was complaining that Bob Hope wasn’t really funny because he wasn’t Jewish. All good singers must be black and all good comedians must be Jewish!

Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" was played on the jukebox incessantly at a New Hampshire ale house that was frequented by rabid fans of the Boston Red Sox. The ale house dwellers would all sing along happily to "Sweet Caroline." I first encountered this New England ale house lunacy about 15 years ago. The internet says it started in the late 1990s before the 8th inning of Red Sox games at Fenway Park. This may be a ripoff of the famed playing of "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra at Yankee stadium.

I have always thought there was a special form of genius involved in getting New Englanders to say this one line over and over again: "I hate the Yankees." Many don't seem to see the delicious humor in that.

The "Sweet Caroline" thing is a bit of harmless crowd-delirium as explained by Huxley. I would counter it at the ale house by playing Talking Heads on the jukebox to up the ante on rhythmic repetitiveness to induce a mild transcendent state.

Epilog of the book Devils Of Loudun -- by Aldous Huxley -- it's worth a read.

No, no, that's not the way to do it. Everyone who wants to win a Grammy can fill out a ballot and turn it in to the Grammy awards. All of the ballots are put into a basket and the winners are drawn at random.
Oh, and you automatically get signed up every time you purchase a Big Mac at MacDonald's.

I don't know why we need to pile on the minstrel show insult pile. Those performers were actual musicians, as much as any popular musicians, and moreso than most of today's studio creations.

“I don’t know why we need to pile on the minstrel show insult pile. Those performers were actual musicians, as much as any popular musicians, and moreso than most of today’s studio creations.”

You are right, of course. I was just looking for a term which is generally considered to be demeaning. Perhaps Lawn Jockey would have been a better choice. The fact is – as you point out – those now reviled minstrel-show performers were far more talented, and far less embarrassing to their race, than rappers are.

"I’ve often thought the great explosion in rock music that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s had a lot to do with demographics."

These things have ups and downs.

Early 60s was relatively lackluster though Brill did churn out great stuff. And there was the phenomenal Phil Specter. 60s did have explosion of great pop music, but things kinda got dull in the early 70s. Some will cite punk, but I think it was a disaster. Bad attitude and stupid. There was disco, good dance music, but silly.
By late 70s and early 80s, music was BAD. So bad that I thought it was over. It was the time of Air Supply, Styx, Journey, and etc. But then, there was an uptick as mid-80s approached, but most of these were one-hit or two-hit wonders OR the swan song of established acts. BORN IN USA, SYNCHRONICITY, THRILLER, and etc were the last great album of these guys.

Then, it was mostly dance techno music and hip hop.

Alice in Chains’ Laine Staley should get honorable mention amid a sea of contemporaneous banality. Most of Michael Jackson’s pre 1985 stuff was good as pop music goes. But it seems the artist departed somewhere thereabout, leaving a semi-animate paedophilic pseudo-corpse occupying the center of a creative vacuum.

"Alice in Chains’ Laine Staley should get honorable mention amid a sea of contemporaneous banality."

Never heard of them before, so I checked them out in Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JA25BIxgtk

What a bunch of tards. I don't like tard music.

I can go for crazy music if its genuinely inspired, like with Hendrix, Zeppelin, Floyd, or the Who. And even though Van Halen was mostly cartoonish, they had a few really killer crazy songs.

But this Alice in Chains stuff looks and sounds just tarded.
Looks like result of bad parenting.

Now, even songs that result from bad parenting can be good. I don't like the image and sound of Blue October, but I must say "Hate Me" is one wallop of a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDxgSvJINlU

What the music culture really misses are guys like Paul Simon and Burt Bacharach.

There must be lots of good songs being written today, but there hasn't been something as good as Mrs. Robinson, Sounds of Silence, Bridge over Troubled Water, Walk On By, This Guy's in Love with You, Raindrop keeps falling on my head, I Say a Little Prayer, and etc.

I think it's the change in sensibility. Before there was Rock n Roll, music was for adults than for kids. So, even though 60s rockers did make music for the young, they also grew up with a more of adult sensibility. So, McCartney was into Cole Porter as into Little Richard. And Brian Wilson listened to his father's favorite songs from the Song book. And Dylan had a rich musical vocabulary. And even though Bacharach really hit his stride in the 60s, he was born in 1928, so he knew music beyond please-the-teeny-boppers. Was there a finer songsmith than Bacharach? Maybe maybe not.

But we do miss people like him.

It seems like everyone who came after the 60s just grew up with youth music sensibility. Their emotions are stuck in teen spirit.

"Without young White men, both as consumers and critically as performers and song writers, pop music is as sterile as another Swedish disco tune. "

But rock idiom has played itself out. I mean who wants another imitation of Stones, Beatles, and etc?

Rap works better in imitation because its very essence is imitation. So, when a new rapper sounds like old rappers, it's nature of the genre.

But we still expect something NEW from rock, and rock played itself out.

By far the most creatively demanding modern popular genre is salsa. No other genre is really close. There are essentially no limits to what can be stated because the “chordal vocabulary”, if you will, is nearly as expansive as the Spanish language itself. None of this grab-muh-d*** Cmaj-Fmaj-Gmaj-Fmaj-Cmaj loop noise. Salsa music employs real arrangers, guys that would give Nelson Riddle, Billy May or Gordon Jenkins a run for their money.

And it has the added benefit of Latin rhythms, in which the violence and mortal tension which historically pervaded the locales where the music evolved are intrinsic to it. It’s natural substrate is that of unfettered licentiousness and armed revolt, and it still has a direct line to the mind’s coke-high simulation center.

Maybe Latin music is the next big thing because everything else has been played out. But rap was essentially played out with NWA, yet somehow the crack epidemic’s fumes have kept that engine churning out new iterations, each worse than the last, for decades.

Mass popularity of Latin music (much of which is quite good-just not the ranchero shit low grade mexers go for over here) in the Anglosphere, and most especially the US, is something that was big in the mid-20th century, but isn't going to happen today. Because most people who speak Spanish as a first language who are present in the US are no one any smart, stylish person would want to relate to.

Until the empire comes down and a new society is rebuilt, which will not be in my lifetime, it's going to get progressively worse in terms of anything with any real popularity.

Salsa has flavor and is fun as dance music, but after awhile, it all sounds the same.

This is the problem with 'Latin music' in general. Sure, lots of sass and style, but very narrow emotional range and individuality. Not much room for personal expression. This can be seen as an advantage in some way. Less opportunity for self-indulgence and anti-professionalism of someone like Patti Smith.

The great thing about Rock is it allowed a wide range of personalities, styles, moods, expressions, and even what might be called explorations(with Dylan and Floyd). But it could also be platform for solipsism, lunacy, dementia, hysterics, and worse. Rock culture allowed stuff like Lennon and Ono's Two Virgins. Shiite. You can't get away with self-indulgent crap in Salsa or Latin Music where you gotta have the beat, flair, expertise, and professionalism. But it means you gotta give the audience what it demands on the dance floor at all times, and that means not much room for experimentation. It's great lounge act music or las vegas music. I don't much care for it.

I used to listen to a lot of Latin music in the mid 90s but after awhile they began to sound the same. One of my favs is Olga Tanon's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Dwx1n-Yz0

I think part of the appeal back then was I wanted to get away from rap crap and stuff like grunge which is mostly negative ugly attitude. Maybe Nirvana had some talent but what an ugly disgusting demento act. And so many bands were like that in the 90s. Cranberries were nice though. Liz Phair was a hot act in the 90s, and her idea of personal expression was yammering about her boring sex life. I mean WHO CARES? Maybe idiot girls grew up listening to Morisette(talented but insufferable with her whiny 24/7 PMS syndrome) and Phair and thought every detail of their sex life is the stuff of significance. How else do you explain the likes of Emma Sulk, Dunham, and much much worse? Compared to these spoiled hideous no good brats, Latin singers seemed more professional and stylish. They didn't perform like the entire world was their bedroom and they just got out of bed. On the other hand, Latin pop features Acts than personalities. Also, since Latin pop is genre-centric, even the very great stuff is more about artist serving the genre than other way around. Dylan, in contrast, used whatever genre he could get his hands on to serve his vision, and great it was. And you don't find people like the incomparable Joni Mitchell in Latin pop.

But gimme Olga Tanon over Patti Smith any day... even though I'll take Stevie Nicks over both. She could really sing, she had star power, and she could be personal and write her own songs.

Bossa Nova has a great sound, but after awhile, it all starts sounding the same. I like it background music mostly. Ideal stuff for the imitative Japanese to copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JjCQhXWLes

Rap music has a narrow stylistic range, but its beats can be used in many ways,and this gives lots of leeway for rappers to be wild and goofy. And it has room for personality even though most rap personalities are thug morons. I think this is the appeal of rap even in Latin America and Africa. Afro-pop and Latin music are nicer and more pleasant, but the personality is subsumed in the music. But with rap, the singer plays role of commander. It's about HIM. Maybe it also owes something to the great role of individualism in Anglo culture. Latin culture was more hierarchical. So, American blacks in blues, jazz, and rap may have developed more individualist styles whereas Latin blacks were about serving the genre.

Salsa has already hard its moments. Ever heard of disco? Along with funk/r&b and other Latin rhythms it took over the world. What more do you expect? I guess a more "authentic," less pop-y form could take over.

You'd think with the booming brown population and things like Dancing with the Stars there would have been a Latin Music Explosion by now. An actual explosion, I mean, not the one they pretended happened in the 90s. Although, I do remember couples learning to salsa back then, and it stuck better than the swing fad.

By far the most creatively demanding modern popular genre is salsa. No other genre is really close. There are essentially no limits to what can be stated because the "chordal vocabulary", if you will, is nearly as expansive as the Spanish language itself. None of this grab-muh-d*** Cmaj-Fmaj-Gmaj-Fmaj-Cmaj loop noise. Salsa music employs real arrangers, guys that would give Nelson Riddle, Billy May or Gordon Jenkins a run for their money.

And it has the added benefit of Latin rhythms, in which the violence and mortal tension which historically pervaded the locales where the music evolved are intrinsic to it. It's natural substrate is that of unfettered licentiousness and armed revolt, and it still has a direct line to the mind's coke-high simulation center.

Maybe Latin music is the next big thing because everything else has been played out. But rap was essentially played out with NWA, yet somehow the crack epidemic's fumes have kept that engine churning out new iterations, each worse than the last, for decades.

Mass popularity of Latin music (much of which is quite good-just not the ranchero shit low grade mexers go for over here) in the Anglosphere, and most especially the US, is something that was big in the mid-20th century, but isn’t going to happen today. Because most people who speak Spanish as a first language who are present in the US are no one any smart, stylish person would want to relate to.

Until the empire comes down and a new society is rebuilt, which will not be in my lifetime, it’s going to get progressively worse in terms of anything with any real popularity.

Anon, Is there Asian fusion music or just cuisine? I don't see any Asians winning anything.

Anon, Is there Asian fusion music or just cuisine? I don’t see any Asians winning anything.

I recall a couple of earworms from Chow Yun Fat gun fu movies in the 80′s. No idea if these are representative of the Asian music industry. There’s also that golden oldie “Sukiyaki“. But that was obviously decades ago.

By far the most creatively demanding modern popular genre is salsa. No other genre is really close. There are essentially no limits to what can be stated because the "chordal vocabulary", if you will, is nearly as expansive as the Spanish language itself. None of this grab-muh-d*** Cmaj-Fmaj-Gmaj-Fmaj-Cmaj loop noise. Salsa music employs real arrangers, guys that would give Nelson Riddle, Billy May or Gordon Jenkins a run for their money.

And it has the added benefit of Latin rhythms, in which the violence and mortal tension which historically pervaded the locales where the music evolved are intrinsic to it. It's natural substrate is that of unfettered licentiousness and armed revolt, and it still has a direct line to the mind's coke-high simulation center.

Maybe Latin music is the next big thing because everything else has been played out. But rap was essentially played out with NWA, yet somehow the crack epidemic's fumes have kept that engine churning out new iterations, each worse than the last, for decades.

Salsa has flavor and is fun as dance music, but after awhile, it all sounds the same.

This is the problem with ‘Latin music’ in general. Sure, lots of sass and style, but very narrow emotional range and individuality. Not much room for personal expression.
This can be seen as an advantage in some way. Less opportunity for self-indulgence and anti-professionalism of someone like Patti Smith.

The great thing about Rock is it allowed a wide range of personalities, styles, moods, expressions, and even what might be called explorations(with Dylan and Floyd). But it could also be platform for solipsism, lunacy, dementia, hysterics, and worse. Rock culture allowed stuff like Lennon and Ono’s Two Virgins. Shiite. You can’t get away with self-indulgent crap in Salsa or Latin Music where you gotta have the beat, flair, expertise, and professionalism. But it means you gotta give the audience what it demands on the dance floor at all times, and that means not much room for experimentation. It’s great lounge act music or las vegas music. I don’t much care for it.

I used to listen to a lot of Latin music in the mid 90s but after awhile they began to sound the same. One of my favs is Olga Tanon’s

I think part of the appeal back then was I wanted to get away from rap crap and stuff like grunge which is mostly negative ugly attitude. Maybe Nirvana had some talent but what an ugly disgusting demento act. And so many bands were like that in the 90s. Cranberries were nice though. Liz Phair was a hot act in the 90s, and her idea of personal expression was yammering about her boring sex life. I mean WHO CARES? Maybe idiot girls grew up listening to Morisette(talented but insufferable with her whiny 24/7 PMS syndrome) and Phair and thought every detail of their sex life is the stuff of significance. How else do you explain the likes of Emma Sulk, Dunham, and much much worse? Compared to these spoiled hideous no good brats, Latin singers seemed more professional and stylish. They didn’t perform like the entire world was their bedroom and they just got out of bed.
On the other hand, Latin pop features Acts than personalities.
Also, since Latin pop is genre-centric, even the very great stuff is more about artist serving the genre than other way around. Dylan, in contrast, used whatever genre he could get his hands on to serve his vision, and great it was. And you don’t find people like the incomparable Joni Mitchell in Latin pop.

But gimme Olga Tanon over Patti Smith any day… even though I’ll take Stevie Nicks over both. She could really sing, she had star power, and she could be personal and write her own songs.

Bossa Nova has a great sound, but after awhile, it all starts sounding the same. I like it background music mostly. Ideal stuff for the imitative Japanese to copy.

Rap music has a narrow stylistic range, but its beats can be used in many ways,and this gives lots of leeway for rappers to be wild and goofy.
And it has room for personality even though most rap personalities are thug morons. I think this is the appeal of rap even in Latin America and Africa.
Afro-pop and Latin music are nicer and more pleasant, but the personality is subsumed in the music.
But with rap, the singer plays role of commander. It’s about HIM.
Maybe it also owes something to the great role of individualism in Anglo culture. Latin culture was more hierarchical. So, American blacks in blues, jazz, and rap may have developed more individualist styles whereas Latin blacks were about serving the genre.

By far the most creatively demanding modern popular genre is salsa. No other genre is really close. There are essentially no limits to what can be stated because the "chordal vocabulary", if you will, is nearly as expansive as the Spanish language itself. None of this grab-muh-d*** Cmaj-Fmaj-Gmaj-Fmaj-Cmaj loop noise. Salsa music employs real arrangers, guys that would give Nelson Riddle, Billy May or Gordon Jenkins a run for their money.

And it has the added benefit of Latin rhythms, in which the violence and mortal tension which historically pervaded the locales where the music evolved are intrinsic to it. It's natural substrate is that of unfettered licentiousness and armed revolt, and it still has a direct line to the mind's coke-high simulation center.

Maybe Latin music is the next big thing because everything else has been played out. But rap was essentially played out with NWA, yet somehow the crack epidemic's fumes have kept that engine churning out new iterations, each worse than the last, for decades.

Salsa has already hard its moments. Ever heard of disco? Along with funk/r&b and other Latin rhythms it took over the world. What more do you expect? I guess a more “authentic,” less pop-y form could take over.

You’d think with the booming brown population and things like Dancing with the Stars there would have been a Latin Music Explosion by now. An actual explosion, I mean, not the one they pretended happened in the 90s. Although, I do remember couples learning to salsa back then, and it stuck better than the swing fad.

Alice in Chains' Laine Staley should get honorable mention amid a sea of contemporaneous banality. Most of Michael Jackson's pre 1985 stuff was good as pop music goes. But it seems the artist departed somewhere thereabout, leaving a semi-animate paedophilic pseudo-corpse occupying the center of a creative vacuum.

“Alice in Chains’ Laine Staley should get honorable mention amid a sea of contemporaneous banality.”

Never heard of them before, so I checked them out in Youtube.

What a bunch of tards. I don’t like tard music.

I can go for crazy music if its genuinely inspired, like with Hendrix, Zeppelin, Floyd, or the Who. And even though Van Halen was mostly cartoonish, they had a few really killer crazy songs.

But this Alice in Chains stuff looks and sounds just tarded.
Looks like result of bad parenting.

Now, even songs that result from bad parenting can be good. I don’t like the image and sound of Blue October, but I must say “Hate Me” is one wallop of a song.

What the music culture really misses are guys like Paul Simon and Burt Bacharach.

There must be lots of good songs being written today, but there hasn’t been something as good as Mrs. Robinson, Sounds of Silence, Bridge over Troubled Water, Walk On By, This Guy’s in Love with You, Raindrop keeps falling on my head, I Say a Little Prayer, and etc.

I think it’s the change in sensibility. Before there was Rock n Roll, music was for adults than for kids. So, even though 60s rockers did make music for the young, they also grew up with a more of adult sensibility. So, McCartney was into Cole Porter as into Little Richard. And Brian Wilson listened to his father’s favorite songs from the Song book. And Dylan had a rich musical vocabulary. And even though Bacharach really hit his stride in the 60s, he was born in 1928, so he knew music beyond please-the-teeny-boppers. Was there a finer songsmith than Bacharach? Maybe maybe not.

But we do miss people like him.

It seems like everyone who came after the 60s just grew up with youth music sensibility. Their emotions are stuck in teen spirit.

The chink in the armor of the globalist/diversity lovers: White women. White women are easily manipulated, but the growing blacklash against Nice White Ladies is starting to become noticable.

The minute that white women figure out that they'll never be coddled and the star of the show, they will start to leave. Nice White Ladies think that it'll be just like the movies where they blacks and browns will thank them profusely for being so, well, nice. Once the reality sets in that the blacks and browns hate them nearly as much as they hate white guys, Nice White Ladies will withdraw. Because, in the end, Nice White Ladies don't want to be around blacks and browns. They just want to be praised.

Check Your Privilege is the downfall of the left. Whether the right can figure out how to take advantage is another story.

Exactly. Because if white women are known for anything,it would be that if they desperately want someone’s approval,and they are treated badly by that someone,they will immediately leave.

I suspect a lot of the praise for Beyoncé is a reflection of the demographics of music critics -- she's a clever beta-male white guy's fantasy version of a Sexy Black Chick. She also appears to be the standard that many smart black women measure themselves against, for some reason.

Actual black men, and white men who regularly date black women, tend to have somewhat different tastes...

Just a gut feeling,but speaking as a white male who has zero attraction to Beyonce,I’d have to say this is wrong. She is an icon for (especially) black women but also latina,mixed race of various sorts,young white women…and gays of all stripes. Call it The Beyonce Paradox:The gal whose act is explicitly sexual appeals to those who don’t have any sexual desire FOR her,that is women and gays. All she ever sings about is how “fierce”she is,etc ad nauseum.

All you old Jews in the music industry who like Neil Diamond songs had better hurry up and die … to make way for middle-aged People of Color like Jay-Z and Jennifer Lopez.

Beware what you wish for, Senor Caramanica !

( BTW, Caramanica’s CuckRiot avatar says it all:)

Go to any bookstore’s (or, even better, Costco ) music section and you ‘ll see that the Beast of Music Industry stiill survives only because of the existence of, obviously not so bright, middle-aged white guys who are still willing to part with $29.99 for The Hamilton Mixtape vinylous poison of their choice.

Same goes for Jon’s feeding hand- NYT.

And everything else.

Otherwise, Snickers & Snickers (athletic shoes and junk food ) is probably the only segment of US industry that rely heavily on a consuming idiocy of black and latino underclass.

"Sweet Caroline" is the song a girl played endlessly all night long at a sleepover I attended in the 6th grade in 1969. Then there's the execrable "Coming to America." Neil Diamond is the straight guy's Elton John. Wouldn't waste my time listening to either.

My older kid listens to all White European rock - opera metal and various other groups, some people may have heard of (Dropkick Murphys, Nightwish) and many rather obscure. A lot of it is not to my taste, but I liked a recent one a great deal and cranked it up LOUD at the gym yesterday to drown out the Negro woman talking on her phone: Volbeat "The Bliss"

Hey thanks. I really liked that Volbeat song. Never heard of them (why should I? I don’t listen to popular music by choice) but I may go exploring. Sort of a combo of an 80′s ballad and an evangelical praise song, with no disturbing images.

Salsa has already hard its moments. Ever heard of disco? Along with funk/r&b and other Latin rhythms it took over the world. What more do you expect? I guess a more "authentic," less pop-y form could take over.

You'd think with the booming brown population and things like Dancing with the Stars there would have been a Latin Music Explosion by now. An actual explosion, I mean, not the one they pretended happened in the 90s. Although, I do remember couples learning to salsa back then, and it stuck better than the swing fad.

Salsa has flavor and is fun as dance music, but after awhile, it all sounds the same.

This is the problem with 'Latin music' in general. Sure, lots of sass and style, but very narrow emotional range and individuality. Not much room for personal expression. This can be seen as an advantage in some way. Less opportunity for self-indulgence and anti-professionalism of someone like Patti Smith.

The great thing about Rock is it allowed a wide range of personalities, styles, moods, expressions, and even what might be called explorations(with Dylan and Floyd). But it could also be platform for solipsism, lunacy, dementia, hysterics, and worse. Rock culture allowed stuff like Lennon and Ono's Two Virgins. Shiite. You can't get away with self-indulgent crap in Salsa or Latin Music where you gotta have the beat, flair, expertise, and professionalism. But it means you gotta give the audience what it demands on the dance floor at all times, and that means not much room for experimentation. It's great lounge act music or las vegas music. I don't much care for it.

I used to listen to a lot of Latin music in the mid 90s but after awhile they began to sound the same. One of my favs is Olga Tanon's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Dwx1n-Yz0

I think part of the appeal back then was I wanted to get away from rap crap and stuff like grunge which is mostly negative ugly attitude. Maybe Nirvana had some talent but what an ugly disgusting demento act. And so many bands were like that in the 90s. Cranberries were nice though. Liz Phair was a hot act in the 90s, and her idea of personal expression was yammering about her boring sex life. I mean WHO CARES? Maybe idiot girls grew up listening to Morisette(talented but insufferable with her whiny 24/7 PMS syndrome) and Phair and thought every detail of their sex life is the stuff of significance. How else do you explain the likes of Emma Sulk, Dunham, and much much worse? Compared to these spoiled hideous no good brats, Latin singers seemed more professional and stylish. They didn't perform like the entire world was their bedroom and they just got out of bed. On the other hand, Latin pop features Acts than personalities. Also, since Latin pop is genre-centric, even the very great stuff is more about artist serving the genre than other way around. Dylan, in contrast, used whatever genre he could get his hands on to serve his vision, and great it was. And you don't find people like the incomparable Joni Mitchell in Latin pop.

But gimme Olga Tanon over Patti Smith any day... even though I'll take Stevie Nicks over both. She could really sing, she had star power, and she could be personal and write her own songs.

Bossa Nova has a great sound, but after awhile, it all starts sounding the same. I like it background music mostly. Ideal stuff for the imitative Japanese to copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JjCQhXWLes

Rap music has a narrow stylistic range, but its beats can be used in many ways,and this gives lots of leeway for rappers to be wild and goofy. And it has room for personality even though most rap personalities are thug morons. I think this is the appeal of rap even in Latin America and Africa. Afro-pop and Latin music are nicer and more pleasant, but the personality is subsumed in the music. But with rap, the singer plays role of commander. It's about HIM. Maybe it also owes something to the great role of individualism in Anglo culture. Latin culture was more hierarchical. So, American blacks in blues, jazz, and rap may have developed more individualist styles whereas Latin blacks were about serving the genre.

Dance music sounds like the dance it is intended for, whether waltz, polka, square dancing or whatever. If you are not dancing to it, it gets old quick.

Modern rock split from “rock’n’roll” (rockabilly, doo wop, and various stomps and such) when it didn’t have to be danceable. No one is going to dance to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Rush.

Punks brought some limited danceability back, but that died out too, because punk performers tended to be hopeless dancers. New wave was no better.

Anybody of a certain age in the Greater Boston area grew up listening to the local college bar troubadours like Jim Plunkett and DJ Sullivan playing Sweet Caroline, an upbeat singalong kind of song, every night around town and down on the Cape at the old Mill Hill Club and The Improper Bostonian during the summer.

Sweet Caroline doesn't remind me of the Red $ox; it reminds me of the summers I spent chasing tail at the Improper!

FC Liverpool has the best theme song:

It a Merseybeat rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s masterpiece, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, from Carousel.

Salsa has already hard its moments. Ever heard of disco? Along with funk/r&b and other Latin rhythms it took over the world. What more do you expect? I guess a more "authentic," less pop-y form could take over.

You'd think with the booming brown population and things like Dancing with the Stars there would have been a Latin Music Explosion by now. An actual explosion, I mean, not the one they pretended happened in the 90s. Although, I do remember couples learning to salsa back then, and it stuck better than the swing fad.